The best way for two strangers to get acquainted quickly is to talk about people they both know.
Liang police officer had no qualms about selling out his classmate and exposing someone's secret: "Every time we crack a case, we'll say it in the group chat. He has said several times 'I just got to the scene and caught the suspect already', or 'The perpetrator has confessed before I even got to the scene'."
She shrugged and said, "I've heard of your name, no big deal, right?"
Jian Jing: "......" Wanted to beat someone up.
"Of course, I need to confirm again." Liang police officer had a serious expression. "What exactly is your relationship with this case? I hope you can tell me in advance about anything that might potentially cause problems. Don't worry, I trust you."
Jian Jing knew her last sentence was bait, but she didn't care: "I only met the painter for the first time yesterday, I didn't know her before that, I have no reason to kill her."
Liang police officer's eyes flashed: "Why do you think it's 'kill'?"
"The painter was lying in the bathtub with the water over her mouth and nose, it looked like she had drowned from intoxication, but she didn't have the characteristics of drowning." Jian Jing went straight to the point.
Liang police officer asked: "You know forensic medicine?"
"I'm a mystery novelist, so I've learned some basic knowledge." Jian Jing took out gloves from her pocket, "Can I take a look at the corpse?"
Liang police officer considered for a moment before stepping aside: "Yes, tell me your analysis."
Jian Jing first observed the overall condition of the corpse.
Chang painter's face was facing up, her head leaning diagonally against the edge of the bathtub. Pulling open her eyelids, one could see the corneas had already clouded over and white speckles appeared. According to common forensic medicine knowledge, it could be roughly inferred that she had been dead for 5-12 hours.
However, the environment greatly affects the corpse. The temperature of the water when she died could also lead to errors.
She carefully turned over Chang painter's body to examine the postmortem lividity.
This was a common death characteristic mentioned in mystery novels - after death, blood circulation stops, and due to gravity, the blood flows to the lower blood vessels, and the red blood cells settle. Through the skin, it presents as purplish-red or dark red patches.
Postmortem lividity can generally be divided into three stages: early, advanced and fixed. There was a simple method to judge them.
Jian Jing lightly pressed on the lividity patches. They temporarily faded away. When she lifted her fingers, they reappeared. It was obvious these were lividity patches in the advanced stage, generally appearing within 12 hours after death.
She pinched the muscles again. They were extremely rigid.
According to the characteristics of rigor mortis - it starts 1-3 hours after death, spreads to the whole body after 4-6 hours, peaks after 12-15 hours, and resolves after 24-48 hours (of course, rigor mortis is greatly affected by the environment, so there can be discrepancies) - it could corroborate the judgment above.
"The painter probably died around 12 hours ago," Jian Jing carefully gave her analysis. "It's 2:45pm now, so it was around midnight when she died."
If she had a thermometer and could directly measure the corpse temperature, she probably could have obtained a more accurate value. Unfortunately she didn't have any tools, she could only roughly infer the general time period based on several characteristics.
Liang police officer nodded in agreement with her analysis, and asked again: "You said earlier this wasn't drowning?"
"Her mouth and nose are very clean," said Jian Jing.
During the drowning process, drowning medium enters the airway through the mouth and nose, stimulating the mucous membranes in the respiratory tract to secrete large amounts of mucus. With intense breathing, the mucus, drowning medium, and air get churned up, forming numerous tiny uniform bubbles. If someone has used a milk frother to make milk foam, it's easy to imagine this process.
Just like milk foam, these bubbles also have a long duration, continuously overflowing from the mouth and nose. Wiping them away, they would quickly reappear.
She picked up a container next to the bathtub and examined it briefly, stirred the water in the tub and smelled it, then bent down to sniff Chang painter's nose: "Her bath water smells of bath salts, but the body doesn't."
Liang police officer was immediately convinced: "Then what do you think is the cause of death?"
"There are no obvious wounds on the corpse," Jian Jing was also very perplexed. Her fingers carefully felt over where the hair covered, but didn't find any wounds.
She really wanted a magnifying glass to go over every inch, but unfortunately couldn't afford it. She could only squint and slowly look for clues.
Liang police officer started pacing around the bathroom.
There was a window in the bathroom. It looked out at the distant lake and mountains, perfectly positioned for the bathtub. A glass of red wine, a tub of hot water, and some aromatherapy - it should have been an extremely blissful experience.
Too bad the owner didn't get to enjoy it.
Liang police officer checked the window. It was made of one-way glass. It was locked from the inside with no way to open it from outside. Unless it was a highly trained person like a SWAT officer, it would be very difficult to climb in.
"The bathroom door is open, but the bedroom door is locked. In other words, this is a locked room murder," Liang police officer murmured to herself while looking around for the key.
Chang painter didn't deliberately hide it. In the bedside table in the bedroom she found the key.
It was inside a makeup box with a clasp on the lid. The drawer was also sealed shut. It didn't seem to involve any mechanisms that could re-lock the key from outside and return it to its original place after use.
Liang police officer went to examine the lock again.
The bedroom lock was a double-latch lock. One needed a key, the other just flipped the latch to unlock.
She called Ai Di over and confirmed with him how he had opened the door. Ai Di said: "I just flipped this latch. She only ever locked this one, never used the key."
Liang police officer nodded and took the opportunity to ask: "Were you and the painter purely platonic friends?"
"Yes, we were just friends, although we did sleep together sometimes." He answered nonchalantly.
Emotional disputes were always an emphasis when investigating social relations. Liang police officer probed further: "You two weren't in a relationship?"
"She's 40, I'm 24. In a relationship?" Ai Di scoffed. "It was just each taking what they needed, nothing to be in a relationship over."
Liang police officer nodded: "Then besides you, do you know if the deceased had similar relationships with anyone else?"
Ai Di calmly said: "I don't know, I don't care, and I'm not concerned."
Liang police officer asked again: "When was the last time you saw the deceased alive?"
"Last night. After they finished drinking, I came over and chatted with her for a bit." Ai Di answered.
Liang police officer: "Around what time was that?"
"Around 10pm probably, I don't remember exactly."
The questioning ended there.
Liang police officer let him leave and asked Jian Jing who was in the bathroom: "Do you have anything to add about his testimony?"
"He came looking for me around 8:30pm. The painter should still have been drinking then," said Jian Jing. "We need to establish everyone's timeline."
Liang police officer asked: "Why did he come looking for you?"
Jian Jing: "To make friends."
"I see." Liang police officer understood completely. "Found any new clues?"
Jian Jing said: "There is some slight bleeding in the painter's oral mucosa and gums, possible she was suffocated. I found a little blue fiber in her nose."
Before she even finished speaking, both their gazes fell on the sofa pillow against the wall.
It was an embroidered pillow Chang painter had specially picked out, with Van Gogh's Starry Night pattern.
Liang police officer contemplated for a long time before speaking: "Perhaps we should collect the fingerprints on the door lock."
"Did you bring tools?"
She said: "There's a forensic kit in the car, but I don't know how to use them."
Jian Jing: "......I do."
Liang police officer: "......Great."
Collecting fingerprints was actually not difficult, especially on a relatively smooth surface like a door lock. Powder and tape was all that was needed.
The powder was standard black powder, made by pulverizing pure aluminum. One had to wear a mask when using it. Jian Jing took a brush made of rat hair, dipped it lightly in the powder, and tapped the handle so the powder fluttered onto the door lock.
This technique was similar to tapping off excess powder during makeup application. The keys were to be gentle, even and soft.
Once the surface was coated evenly with powder, she used a clean comb to gently sweep across it until the fingerprint patterns emerged. Then she swept away the excess powder.
After that, she used special tape, just like how she used to stick transparent tape on top of wrong pen strokes as a child, lightly lifting off the print.
Jian Jing obtained two partial fingerprints, but she wasn't optimistic at all.
"It's too clean, only two prints," she said. "These must be from when Ai Di opened the door. Someone wiped the lock before."
If the door was locked by the regular painter, it would be impossible to leave such clean fingerprints. Now there were only Eddie's fingerprints on it, which could prove that someone had wiped away the traces and then locked the door again to create a locked room murder.
Officer Liang took a magnifying glass and carefully examined the door lock, then said, "There are no traces of wire friction or adhesive tape, so it shouldn't be a mechanism. The person must have climbed out through the balcony."
"I think so too," Jian Jing smiled. "It's too difficult to make mechanisms in real life."
One has to know that those amazing chain reaction videos online are the results of countless attempts before they can demonstrate such astounding effects. Unless it was a simple old-fashioned door, no one could be certain of succeeding in just a few tries.
Compared to some locking mechanism, climbing the balcony was obviously much simpler and more reasonable.
"Let's go. With some luck, we may be able to extract some footprints."
The tool for examining footprints was a portable flashlight with a flat light source that could easily illuminate shoe prints. After eliminating Jian Jing and Eddie's shoe prints, they found half of a shoe print on the balcony railing.
The shoe print had a logo on it - the hotel's customized slippers.
"VG, Van Gogh - it's from our building's shoes," Jian Jing said.
The resort had three buildings in total. The Monet Building on the left housed Eddie, Xiao Lu and Xiao Tian. The Da Vinci Building in the middle only had the regular painter Chang living there. The Van Gogh Building on the right housed Boss Tao, Xia Tianxin, Wu Writer, Jian Jing and Kang Musheng.
Officer Liang was very attentive. "Why do you guests all live on this side?"
Jian Jing explained, "The view is the best, directly facing the lake."
"Are you sure it's not your shoe?"
"When I climbed over the balcony, I was wearing sneakers. I went hiking up the mountain this morning and got some mud on them." Jian Jing pointed at the smallest shoe print next to her, very certain.
Officer Liang walked around the shoe print twice. "It's a shoe from your building, but not necessarily someone from your building. We'll have to ask everyone for their alibis yesterday."
*
To get the best results, Jian Jing and Officer Liang split up.
Officer Liang asked everyone for their alibis individually, while Jian Jing chatted with the others to try to uncover clues.
Xiao Tian was very worried, "How did Teacher die?"
"Don't know, the coroner hasn't arrived yet." Jian Jing fully utilized her skills as a novelist and said seriously, "I saw the body just now. There were no wounds."
Xiao Tian hesitated and asked softly, "What does that mean?"
"Drowned?" Boss Tao guessed, "She was drunk, left the water running and it drowned her?"
Xia Tianxin tilted her head, puzzled, "Then shouldn't the bathroom be flooded?"
Boss Tao was stumped. "Yeah, you're right."
But Wu Writer seemed utterly disinterested in the truth. He kept glancing at his phone. "When will the road open up? This sucks, how unlucky!"
He made a great effort to appear annoyed and frustrated, but he couldn't stop complaining. Yet Jian Jing sensed his impatience stemmed from another reason.
Things were getting more and more interesting.
